the wrens vs. they might be giants

In 1986, They Might Be Giants released their first album (I bought a copy! It came on a spool of magnetized wire. See, it was a long time ago...).

Anyway, a scant three years later, the wrens started making vastly inferior pop noises in front of microphones and TMBG are to be held at least partially responsible.

Now, lo these many years later, our friend David Miller has put together a They Might Be Giants tribute album (yeah, we know, another tribute. But this one’s actually really pretty darned good. Check out the Receptor song, for starters).

It’s called ‘Hello Radio: the Songs of They Might Be Giants’ and the running order looks something like this:

1) Self- ana ng

2) The Long Winters- pet name

3) David Miller- narrow your eyes

4) Charles Douglas- she's an angel

5) Frank Black- road movie to berlin

6) The Wrens- they'll need a crane

7) Steve Burns- dead

8) OK Go- letterbox

9) Recepter- boat of car

10) This Radiant Boy- don't let's start

11) Jason Trachtenburg- doctor worm

12) Fluid Ounces- it's not my birthday

13) Brett Kull- another first kiss

14) Hotel Lights- the end of the tour

Notice anything? I mean, besides that Self, the Long Winters, Frank Black and a bunch of others are on there? That’s right, kitty cats, us too. And besides being super happy with the whole thing, it also makes this the fourth official new recording we’ve done since we finished the meadowlands 20 or 30 years ago (the others being one of the bonus tracks on the meadowlands U.K./Euro version, one song on the Five Mod Four split, and a song we did for a friend’s wedding).

Progress came quicker to the Middle Ages.

Anyway, fittingly, it’s just been released on Bar/None Records, the label that released all those early TMBG albums. And that also means that 14 or 15 years after sending our demo to Bar/None, we’ve finally been signed!

Ok, we’re kidding around but we really did send a demo back then and it really does mean something cool to us now to be on a Bar/None album of some sort.